The destiny awaiting us at death is not the same for all men: "He will render to every man according to his works." (Matthew XVI. 27) Heaven, Hell and Purgatory are the three places into which the souls of the departed are received. Heaven is the happy destination of perfectly pure and holy souls only; Hell the final doom of the reprobate; Purgatory, temporarily for the just, who are not, as yet, entirely purified. There God completes the punishment due to their faults, which were not sufficiently atoned for on earth; there He submits these holy souls to the last purgation, to cleanse them from the least stain, and, by fire, to bring them to that degree of perfected purity, which is necessary for them before being admitted to eternal bliss.

Hence there are two classes of souls in Purgatory:

1. Those who depart this life, stained by venial sins and imperfections. 

2. Those who have repented, and if possible, confessed their mortal sins without, however, having done sufficient penance for them. Judging from our lives, experience teaches us that most men deserve Purgatory for both causes.

Prayer for Priests in Purgatory: My Jesus, by the sorrows Thou didst suffer in Thine Agony in the Garden, in Thy Scourging and Crowning with thorns, in the Way to Calvary, in Thy Crucifixion and Death, have mercy on the souls of priests in Purgatory, especially those most forgotten and who have no one else to pray for them. I wish to remember all those priests who ministered to me, the priests my heart has never forgotten, and for those that I no longer recall due to my frailty of memory. Do Thou deliver them from the dire torments they endure; call them and admit them to Thy most sweet embrace in Paradise.

Pope Saint Pius X and Saint John Vianney, pray for us and especially for our priests. Amen

Special Intercession: Pray for the souls of those who suffer in Purgatory for little faults.
Lord grant them eternal rest  and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen (Three times)

Invocation: My Jesus, mercy!

Our Lady of Guadalupe's Cemetery, Newton Grove NC

The anniversary of "All-Souls" was instituted by the Church as a day of special prayer for all the faithful departed who are as yet deprived of the blissful contemplation of God, and the possession of Heaven. These holy souls endure most agonizing torments, and count the lingering moments of time, while awaiting release from prison, or, at least, some relief in their intense pain. They have special confidence in their friends and relatives upon earth, hoping to be lovingly cherished in their memory, and aided by their fervent prayers. With holy Job they cry out: "Have pity on me, have pity on me, at least you, my friends, because the hand of the Lord hath touched me." (Job XIX, 21.)

The anniversary of All-Souls should serve to revive and confirm our devotion in behalf of the suffering souls in Purgatory, and induce us to make ample amends for our neglect of this duty during the year. "A gift hath grace in the sight of all the living, and restrain not grace from the dead." (Eccl. VII. 37.)

Prayer for Priests in Purgatory: My Jesus, by the sorrows Thou didst suffer in Thine Agony in the Garden, in Thy Scourging and Crowning with thorns, in the Way to Calvary, in Thy Crucifixion and Death, have mercy on the souls of priests in Purgatory, especially those most forgotten and who have no one else to pray for them. I wish to remember all those priests who ministered to me, the priests my heart has never forgotten, and for those that I no longer recall due to my frailty of memory. Do Thou deliver them from the dire torments they endure; call them and admit them to Thy most sweet embrace in Paradise.

Pope Saint Pius X and Saint John Vianney, pray for us and especially for our priests. Amen

Special Intercession: Pray for the souls of those who suffer the greatest torments.

Lord grant them eternal rest, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen. (three times)

Invocation: My Jesus, mercy!

A Burial at Ornans, Gustave Courbet

"Of late years Catholics in some places have begun to copy the pagan custom of decorating the dead. Flower wagons seem to form a necessary part of most funerals. The non-Catholic has no Mass, and Purgatory is a place unknown to him. He may mean to express his sympathy and sorrow in the flower he places on the coffin of the dead. It may speak for him the last farewell of a loving heart to a cherished friend.

But flowers are not for the dead, they take away the thought of death. The sacredness of that solemn moment is lost amid the fragrance of flowers. The casket hides an awful mystery. "Thou shalt die the death." The deceased friend has paid his share of Adam's debt, the living must be reminded of the debt that is still unpaid - their own. Gay flowers and handsome wreaths disturb the majesty of the thought.

The burial of our dead is a religious ceremony; not a vain and worldly pageant. The rubrics of the Church forbid flowers on the altar at funeral Masses; the altar is draped in mourning; the priest wears black vestments; all in keeping with the great and solemn mystery of death. Many dioceses have strict rulings forbidding flowers in Church at funerals.

What comfort will it be to you, kind reader, to have flowers lavished on your remains? Your poor soul will be craving in the cleansing fires of Purgatory, not for flowers, but for prayers, for the Precious Blood in the Holy Sacrifice of the mass! Source: Annals of St. Joseph Nov. 1917, Vol XXIX No. 9 Norbertine Fathers page 141

• Annual Poor Souls Enrollment (Fssp)
• Purgatorian Archconfraternity (Fssr)
• Rorate Caeli Purgatorial Society

"Oh, my friends, let us pray much, and let obtain many prayers from others, for the poor dead; the good God will render us back the good we do to them a hundredfold. Ah! if every one knew how useful this devotion to the holy souls in purgatory is to those who practice it, they would not be forgotten so often; the good God regards all that we do for them as if it were done to Himself." -- St. John Mary Vianney (Blessed Sacrament Book, Fr. Francis X. Lasance)

Devotion for the month of November: Souls in Purgatory

Virtue of the month of November: Charity

This is the first and greatest commandment: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart; but the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Matthew, xxii: 88

"My God and my Lord! What need was there of commanding us to love Thee? Art Thou not most lovely in Thy infinite perfections? and for the infinite love Thou bearest to us, dost Thou not deserve our love? How, then, is it possible that any one should not love Thee? if there is such a person, it must be because he has not deserved to know Thee. For, a soul that knows God, cannot help loving Him, and loving Him in proportion to his knowledge of Him; so that is he loves Him but little, it  is a sign that he knows Him but little; and the more his knowledge increases, the more his love will go on growing. St. Teresa."

"Among all those who are included under the title of neighbor, there are none who deserve it more, in one sense, that those of our own household. They are nearest of all of us, living under the same roof, and eating the same bread. Therefore, they ought to be one the principal objects of our love, and we should practice in regard to them all the acts of true charity, which ought to be founded not in flesh and blood, or upon their good qualities, but altogether upon God. St. Francis de Sales"

November's Daily Thoughts:

November's leaden skies are stretched above the fields
That Autumn's sun from flaming gold turned gray;
How faint they gleam in gossamered delight that yields
The grandeurs of Saint Martin's summer day.
True hearts are awed, yet fain, to see that Nature died;
True souls rejoice to know that not in vain they sighed.

As verdure passed, so man who is of earth, but part,
Lays down his life like wilted garden blooms,
And flowered clay, like pall, enshrouds the frozen heart,
But not the soul that Justice then illumes.
What naught was held, is vivid splotch in vision pure,
And in the purgatorial flames finds cleaning cure.

Like babes, they helpless mourn to burn away their stains,
And know beyond the bars beams heaven's light
That God will show, like sun-lit sheen, when pardon reigns.
While yet our days are clear, they live in night;
The merits of Christ-blest November's daily prayer.
Rev. T.F. Kramer, C.PP.S.

1923  Messenger of the Most Precious Blood, Volumes 28-29

Fra Angelico: The Forerunners of Christ with Saints and Martyrs

"Our yearly liturgical course in living with Christ is fast drawing to a close. That is the reason why these last Sunday Masses have been showing us various aspects of the final reckoning when Christ our Judge will examine us to see how we have profited by all those countless opportunities of grace lavished upon us in every Sacrifice and sacrament throughout the year. What therefore could be more natural for us than, finding within ourselves the same un-Christly Christians as of yore, to feel a sense of frustration at the thought of so great a discrepancy between what was expected of us and what we have actually achieved? Can the liturgical life really be so marvelous a thing, if it shows so little proof of its power in our own daily living? Just such a sense of discouragement on our part the Church seems to have anticipated. For right here, almost at the close of her annual course, she gives us in review a veritable pageant of successful lives lived by those whom she has already graduated into eternity summa cum laude.

These multitudes of human beings from every race and nation, from every clime and century - what are they, one and all, but drops of water in the vast ocean of Christ's redemptive work? Each one, as a member of the Mystical Body on earth, has not only been saved thereby but has also helped to "fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ,...for his body, which is the Church." Col. 1:24. Douay-Rheims.

The ocean of redemptive merits became so vast a thing in its multiple human aspect that we could only gaze in wonderment at its unfathomable extent and depth. This is why, for those of us who are able to go to weekday Mass, the liturgy allowed us to examine this redeeming accomplishment of Christ a drop at a time, while we celebrated the feast days of the saints. Thus holding up a tiny particle of Christly glory to the great sun of God's infinite perfections, we could study their separate rays as they were refracted in the various hues of those personalities through which they passed. For the divine attributes, incarnate in mortal men, are, as it were, split into tiny human colors, so that we may more easily study them and try to adapt them to our own poor way of life.

To say, for instance, that God is love does not pass beyond the cold, clear realm of our intellect. But to learn that Francis of Assisi, in reflecting this divine charity, loved every flower and bird and uncouth clod of humankind to romantic folly, has set seven hundred years ablaze. When we are told that God is good, we nod assent and stifle a yawn. But when we read that a Peter Claver, filled to the brim by a participation in this goodness, could spend years of devoted service amid the nauseating slave ships in his endeavor to salvage souls for eternity- ah! then we begin to think that goodness is something real after all.

Thus through this past year the Church has carefully marshaled before us her procession of successes, men, women, and even children. All from the dawn of Christianity have chosen to live the Christ-Life to its fullest extent, regardless of the cost. Each of these heroes has paid in some way the price of life itself, if not by the actual shedding of his blood, then at least by the slow and relentless extermination of self in every form, so that it might be no longer he that lived but Christ in him.

Since, however, the vast majority of Christians, unable to go to daily Mass, cannot study this pageant of Christ's heroes gradually throughout the year, the Church has set aside this feast as a day of obligation. Now all her members may see in one grand review all those whose outstanding success bears witness to the potency of the Christ-Life as lived in and through the liturgical signs which make that Life an ever present reality.
 Also the Church's object in thus honoring her heroes is to make us realize her great doctrine, the Communion of Saints. This is that celestial plan of distributive wealth, whereby the millionaires of heaven from their own abundance may effectively subsidize us, their needy brethren. This means that through the very special grace of today's feast of All Saints, we may fill our souls to overflowing with all the riches of Christ's members, who have traded with their talents so as to enrich not only themselves but also their brethren of every age and race and nation." Companion to the Missal, Sister M Cecilia OSB

"Oh! (...) My brethren, let the world have its gods and worship them; let it have its wisdom, which is foolishness with God; let it deride and mock at penance, at asceticism, at Religious vows, at practices of humiliation, at pilgrimages, at devotions, at prayer itself. But let us remember that Christ, and His Church after Him, have cursed the world. Voe Mundo! Let us stand firm, though power, and wealth, and culture be in conspiracy against us. Let us stand firm, though we be persecuted and vilified, and our name cast out as evil for Christ's sake. Let us keep the faith. Let us be imitators of the Saints as they also were of Christ. Let us fix our eyes on the end of all things, on the prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus. Let us never forget those words, so full at once of terror and consolation: "Then shall the just stand with great constancy against those that have afflicted them and taken away their labors. Those seeing it, shall be troubled with terrible fear, and shall be amazed at the suddenness of their unexpected salvation, saying within themselves, repenting, and groaning for anguish of spirit: These are they, whom we had sometime in derision, and for a parable of reproach. We fools esteemed their life madness, and their end without honor. Behold, how they are numbered among the children of God, and their lot is among the Saints." Sermons by the Fathers of the Society of Jesus, Vol. 3, Feast of all Saints.

"One of the most consoling doctrines of the Catholic Church is that of the Communion of Saints. All, the saints in Heaven, we upon earth, the souls in Purgatory, are members of one great family. By this "bond of perfection" which unites the Suffering and Triumphant Church with the Militant Church upon earth, incorporating them into one body, mutual charity becomes an obligation. This reciprocal love, being the duty of all men, renders it imperative that all should pray for one another, for in this general prayer, offered mutually, Christian charity is most beautifully and eloquently expressed.

From this general obligation we derive the special duty to pray for the suffering souls in Purgatory, who are unable in their extreme distress to do aught for their own relief. It has always been the belief of Holy Church that the faithful, united in the Communion of Saints, can mutually assist each other. As the saints in Heaven pray for us, so must we also offer our petitions for the suffering souls in Purgatory, that God in His goodness and mercy, may mitigate and shorten their punishment, and hasten their entrance into Heaven. It is the doctrine of the Church that the faithful upon earth are really able to relieve the temporal punishment of the holy souls in Purgatory. "In this," says the Roman Catechism, "we must praise the infinite goodness and mercy of God with greatest thankfulness, that He has granted to human weakness the grace that one can make satisfaction for another."

Prayer for Priests in Purgatory: My Jesus, by the sorrows Thou didst suffer in Thine Agony in the Garden, in Thy Scourging and Crowning with thorns, in the Way to Calvary, in Thy Crucifixion and Death, have mercy on the souls of priests in Purgatory, especially those most forgotten and who have no one else to pray for them. I wish to remember all those priests who ministered to me, the priests my heart has never forgotten, and for those that I no longer recall due to my frailty of memory. Do Thou deliver them from the dire torments they endure; call them and admit them to Thy most sweet embrace in Paradise.

Pope Saint Pius X and Saint John Vianney, pray for us and especially for our priests. Amen

Special Intercession: Pray for those who, during the course of their earthly lives, did most to relieve the souls in  Purgatory.

Lord grant them eternal rest, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen. (three times)

Invocation: My Jesus, mercy!

Source: Manual of the Purgatorian Society, Redemptorist Fathers. 1907

Fra Angelico: The Forerunners of Christ with Saints and Martyrs

Halloween was originally a day of Fasting by Philip Kosloski